Ground tests of the open-fan engine demonstrator will take place later this decade, while a separate powerplant will fly aboard an Airbus A380 testbed.
CFM International’s RISE open-fan engine demonstrator has passed the preliminary design review (PDR) stage as the narrowbody propulsion joint venture builds toward full-scale ground tests later this decade.
Announcing the milestone at a pre-Farnborough air show briefing on 18 July, Pierre Cottenceau, executive vice-president engineering, research and technology at CFM partner company Safran Aircraft Engines, said the PDR covered the compact core, open-fan, and outlet guide vanes (OGVs).
“This is a very important milestone in our world,” he says. “Because it means we can now start manufacturing the parts that will be built, that will be assembled into the ground-test demonstrator of the open-fan.”
That engine will run at some point later this decade, although the engine maker is not “giving more details on exact timings”, says Arjan Hegeman, vice-president of future of flight engineering for GE Aerospace, the other half of the CFM joint venture.
Separately, CFM and partner Airbus will fly what Hegeman describes as a “product-representative demonstrator” aboard a modified A380 around 2029.
He offers few specifics on that engine, but it will not feature the all-new compact core currently being developed.
Instead it will feature a “Passport-size core” – referring to GE’s 18,000lbf (80kN) business jet engine – coupled with the low-pressure open-fan system being developed by Safran.
Incorporated in the core will be “some, not necessarily all of the technologies in there that we are maturing for future products”, he says, while others will be tested in a dedicated core demonstrator.
“We have this flight demonstrator, we have this core demonstrator, we have multiple pillars that all combine towards that product programme readiness,” says Hegeman.
RISE is designed to be ready for service-entry around the middle of the decade, depending on the airframers’ schedule for a next-generation narrowbody.
CFM is this year celebrating five years of development work on the RISE programme, during which time around 500 test campaigns have been conducted to support the advanced engine architecture, including wind tunnel, endurance and dust ingestion testing.
Meanwhile, Safran is conducting mechanical and material tests on the blades and outlet guide vanes for the open-fan design, including impact, endurance and fatigue, among others.
Later this year, the French company will open a new 8m (26ft)-wide test cell at its Villaroche facility near Paris capable of accommodating the full front module, including the 4m-diameter fan.
First tests of the full fan system will begin by year-end or in early 2027, says Cottenceau.
Additionally, Safran in the coming days will begin ground tests of a hybridised Silvercrest business jet engine, leveraging that technology for the RISE programme.
Perhaps with one eye on the durability criticisms levelled at the current-generation Leap engine – particularly as a result of dust ingestion in harsh operating environments – Hegeman claims the RISE will offer a significant boost to airlines.
Thanks to the characteristics of the open-fan configuration, it ingests “more than 50% less dust” than a ducted engine, he claims.
Combined with the planned lower operating temperature in the core “this results in significantly better time-on-wing”.
In fact, he says, customers in harsh environments “are likely to experience the time-on-wing currently enjoyed by [Leap] operators in a neutral environment – that’s a step-change”.
CFM is continuing its dust ingestion test programme on its compact core technologies, which have already accumulated around 3,000 cycles of testing.
Those technologies have now been inserted into a Leap engine for further ingestion trials.
“By the end of the year we will have close to 10,000 cycles of durability; this is a technology demonstrator programme – we have never done this so early.”
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